


Unless It's Perfect, It's Not Worth It

by Gay_as_fuck



Series: How Not To Be Perfect (but how to be okay) [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Near Death Experiences, Overdosing, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gay_as_fuck/pseuds/Gay_as_fuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can never be perfect, he's never enough, he's got to be worthy of being his father's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unless It's Perfect, It's Not Worth It

**Author's Note:**

> this is super sad i was gonna make it longer but this was the perfect place to end so angst central.

His pills were white, little round snowflakes of peace in his hand. They had looked orange tinted through the bottle but when he poured them out they were white and pure. He checked the back for his dose, and took it, one and a half of those little pills. He took a sip of water from a red plastic cup he had placed on the edge of the white sink, just as pure as his pills but more shiny. As he swallowed his medication, he didn’t think twice of the rest of the bottle leaving it open by the side of the sink. 

\--

He took them for half a year and he was golden. The little white tablets made him shine the color of the Stanley Cup, silver that glinted white in the harsh stadium lights. When he saw it in the pictures it looked as if his pills were spilling from the cup, that they were really what marked the champion. 

That night instead of one and a half he took two pills, they weren’t even working that well anyways. After he took them he didn’t feel much different at all, in fact he felt calmer like a thief who had just gotten away with a diamond.

\--

He doesn’t tell anyone outside his family and doctor that he takes meds. It’d make him look weak, and there is to be no weakness from the the prince of hockey. Even Kent doesn’t know, and they’re basically brothers by now. 

His father still doesn’t know about him taking more, but it helps oh god does it help. It makes him calmer, he can focus at last so what if he takes more than he’s supposed to be.

When winter rolls around the snow that hangs around the outdoor rinks is white, and it reminds him of what keeps his calm and makes him better. White is pure and good and everything he needs to be. 

His father’s hair is greying early, and turning white. It somehow makes him more perfect than before, when jack sees that he takes three pills that night and doesn’t give it up. If he can’t be perfect like his father, he needs to be something at least.

\--

Kent sees his pills one night, and confronts him. By this time he’s taking five a night and he’s still not as good as his father. He hasn’t made all the comebacks and he doesn’t have the same skill, he’s the best in his league but he’s still not as good.

He tells Kent the basics, that he’s got anxiety and he takes them because he needs to. He doesn’t tell his secret, though he wants to. He wants to tell this man he’s given his trust that he’s tired of keeping a secret.

He doesn’t tell Kent, he never does. Kent sees him take the pills some nights, he never asks but sometimes shoots concerned glances. Kent’s hair is blondish white, and it’s near perfect. But Kent isn’t white, he isn’t pure, he’s gold but he could never make Jack perfect.

\--

Jack overdoses the night before a game. Not just a game, the last game before the draft, and one of the few games where his father is watching. He looks in the mirror as his hands shake and is breath fogs up the dirty glass of his hotel mirror. 

His hair isn’t white and that might be what sets him off, because white is perfect and he needs to be perfect. He can’t miss and he can’t fail, all that matters is that he makes it onto a team and that he never messes up, ever.

He knows he can’t do that, but doing anything else would disappoint his father. Everyone calls it an accident but he can’t really, because a part of his mind causes the impulse. He downs what’s left of his medication and the world goes white.

For a brief second the world is perfect.


End file.
